Almost spoiled

V is walking a thin line between being loved and being spoiled some weeks...as an only child, and a girl, she gets a lot of special attention.

Just because she's been using napkins as placemats for months I ordered V some cute toddler sized placemats from etsy.com...here she is opening "something" on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.

I especially enjoy how excited she is despite having no idea what she is looking at!

Here they are in "action"

My mother claims that V's love of placemats comes from her, with her whole shelf of 27 sets of placemats for all occasions. So that's her Shackelford side.

As an only child, she also gets all her toys to herself. Like her pool. Which she uses for things like this:

Creating ways to jump into water like a mini-daredevil? Yep, that's her Bruce side.

And because she's the only granddaughter on either side, she also gets to have great moments like this...T returns from a Saturday trip to the mailbox with an envelope. Inside is:

THANKS GRANDMA! She actually needed a new bathing suit, so I can't really categorize this as spoiling...she's just lucky! (And so are T & I to have such great family members!)

Walk the line V, walk the line!

So You Think You Can Act?

Well watch out because here comes Miss V, Ginny B, Gin Gin, Bin Bin, Virginia Cute...whatever you choose to call her! Here is a sampling of her latest, greatest hits. We'll call this her spring/summer showcase...

A family favorite....shiver me timbers

Utilizing method acting...embracing her feelings

Seriously...why would she say "what about me?" I have no idea where she got that from.

And finally- the sunny side of V.

I keep suggesting NCT start acting classes for 2 year olds, but somehow they think I'm overstating V's abilities. What more can I do to prove how advanced she is?

This one is just for extra credit...and to show you this head bobbing thing she is doing all the time. Again, I have no idea where she came up with this. And I can't remember for the life of me why she was shushing me, but it was funny.

One more thing...

Just had to show you how much V has grown since October...thanks to all that fruit I am sure.

October 2008

May 2009

P.S. Their measurements are off right? She looks HUGE now compared to October to me...but then again, I am her mama, and thus, biased.

Happy Memorial Day Part II: Fruit

With warm weather comes the abundance of fruit and veggies! Mmmm, good times for the VeggieBruces and Virginia in particular as she is made up of approximately 95% fruit.

We took our second trip to Vollmer Farm in Franklin County, this time with E's parents for strawberry picking!

With a little help from Grandaddy, V caught on quick

The fields were just gorgeous- I had never seen strawberry plants before (that I recall, Dad claims we had them in out backyard in Athens but I was too little to remember). The strawberries were dark red and ready to be picked! We made quick work of picking 4, 5-gallon buckets.

When we started to leave the field, I finally let V eat a strawberry...I was glad I waited. She was a bottomless pit after the first one.

As mentioned previously, after a good nap, we headed to Durham for fun with friends and V got to eat her second favorite food, watermelon! Do these pictures scream summer or what?

In just a few short weeks we'll have 6 kinds of tomatoes, plus peppers & zucchini of our own to eat alongside the bags and bags of frozen strawberries I now have in the freezer! Anyone up for strawberry shortcake?

Happy Memorial Day Part I: Water

The start of summer wouldn't be the same without some good old fun in the sun, right? (Wearing SPF 30 sunscreen at all times of course!) We had several water-related weekend activities, beginning with breaking out the blow up pool on Sunday morning!

While Mama Bruce was running the tiller for 3 HOURS STRAIGHT (the neighbors hate us now), V and Daddy Bruce got wet and wild in the front yard.

We got this cool sprinkler from the Wells next door last year- V was terrified of it then, but at least gave it a small chance this year before demanding that we fill up the pool instead.

Maybe we'll save it for a REALLY hot day and see if she appreciates it more. I tested it out and thought it was fabulous, but then again, I had been tilling my garden for 3 HOURS.

Then on Monday (after a strawberry picking recovery nap), we went to visit grad school friends Chris & Melinda and their 1 1/2 year old daughter, Samantha. After what seemed like a full hour of not speaking to each other except to squeal when someone stole a toy, we took a trip to the park and the girls finally bonded over their love of water. Once they realized their shared love for splishy splashy fun, they were inseparable...playing silly games and allowing the adults to actually have a conversation (what a concept!).

Once we got back from the park, thanks to the brilliant minds of Chris & Melinda and a couple of buckets of water and measuring cups, the adults "leisurely" ate thei r dinner, the girls splashed, jumped and drank (ick!) water on the back porch.

Garden planted? Check. Pool inflated? Check. Water party? Check. We are officially ready for summer!

Mother's Day

This is what I woke up to!

Poor V had an ear infection over the weekend and hardly slept...T got up at 5 am with her on Sunday, gave her some Tylenol and proceeded to nap on the couch. V slept there for 3 hours. After a quick visit to the doctor and one round of antibiotics she was pretty much back to her old self.


T spent the day building me 3 raised garden beds and I spent the day keeping V out of his way. For supper, my brother and his girlfriend Chrissy had us over for dinner along with my parents. Cooking for so many people made Chrissy a little crazy, but she did a great job.


Here are the boys:


And the girls:


Chrissy made a delicious Mexican meal and the weather was perfect for dining al fresco. Chrissy even had bubbles ready to keep V occupied.


She also had a delicious fruit salad ready-there's nothing V likes more than fruit...well, except chocolate.


A late Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there!

New York City

I had a fabulous girls' weekend (May 1-3) in NYC in celebration of April's upcoming nuptials. April, her BFF from childhood Kelly, and her buddies Athena and Caren from college-ish times all convened near Grand Central Station for a wild weekend of...grown up-no children-all girl FUN!

What happens when 2 moms and 2 teachers get together without children/husbands/fiances or boyfriends for the weekend? Well...

We went shopping, we ate crazy delicious Italian/Indian/Mediterranean/Asian New York food, we saw Rock of Ages (just 2 days before it was nominated for FIVE Tonys)...we talked to lots of strangers. It was great.

l-r Athena, moi, April, Kelly at the Irish pub connected to our hotel


After Rock of Ages and getting (American Idol star) Constantine's autograph


April & the girls somehow talked the driver of this rickshaw into letting her drive it...right by the Radio City Music Hall. Craziness, I tell you, craziness.


In the elevator at 2 a.m.....still smiling.


April and I at the airport the next morning...realizing we are old, tired ladies despite pretending not to be while we were in NYC.

The only bad thing was dropping my cell phone into a disgusting puddle of dirty water on 42nd Street...it was not too happy with me from that point forward. Sadly, it is working OK now so I suppose I can't use it as an excuse to rush out and buy a new iPhone.

We have resolved to have a girls' weekend every May from now on...let's hope we can stick to the PLAN!

Return Trip to Raleigh

No trip back from DC would be complete without a stop at Grandma's in Ashland. A "quick lunch stop" turned into a big family picnic-complete with hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans and dessert! Ash his fiancee Amanda (hooray Ash is getting married!) and Jaedon came over, and Great Grandma was also on hand for hugs.

V hadn't seen Jaedon in way too long and she was fascinated by him...started out being shy but wound up following his every step.

Jaedon has 2 younger siblings so he knows how to interact with younger kids- TICKLE!

Of course, being older, and male, there was a good amount of torture mixed in for good measure which V also enjoyed.

It was a great stop...and almost made up for all the whining the last 30 minutes of every road trip requires. Thanks for tiring out V, Paw Paw and Grandma, she was asleep before we got to Richmond.

P.S. I just couldn't resist taking a picture of V in the car on the way home...since she is still new to the potty, I took it with me so she could use her potty instead of the terrifying self-flushing toilets at rest areas. She loved it a little too much and was disappointed that I put the potty back in the house. :)

Old Town...a few weeks later

So V and I took the new Honda Fit for its first road trip up to Northern Virginia to visit our dear friends the Coynes (over 2 weeks ago now, sorry for the delayed posting).

Little Fit got 45 mpg for one long stretch...I made it from Richmond to Alexandria and all the way home on ONE 10-GALLON TANK OF GAS...so awesome, especially as gas has just gone up to $2.09 today!

We had a great visit...V & James are both potty training so there were no fewer than 100,000 trips to the potty which resulted in an ACCIDENT FREE WEEKEND! We walked around Alexandria- visiting a much hipper Farmers Market than Raleigh's and a delicious waterfront restaurant that served veggie burgers and pancakes at the same time.

We played with baby Molly...and watched her sleep. We made up rules for speed scrabble. And we made V and James hug. A lot.

I think V's favorite part of the trip was when James took a long nap and she got to play with his water table all alone. Before I knew what was happening, she was soaking wet. I stripped her down and things just got worse from there. She loved it and James never knew he was missing out on all this fun.

Meanwhile, Molly did this:

Lego homes were created and immediately destroyed, 3 flights of stairs were climbed repeatedly and lots of squealing and running around occured (despite parental attempts to dissuade this behavior indoors). Now if I can just talk the Coynes into moving back to Raleigh the world would be perfect...